Problem Statement
M doctors are each to examine each of N patients, wearing gloves to avoid contamination. Each glove can be used any number of times, but the same side of one glove cannot be exposed to more than one person. Gloves can be re-used any number of times, and more than one can be used simultaneously.
Given M doctors and N patients, the minimum number of gloves G(M ,N) required for all the doctors to examine all the patients is given by:
- G(M, N) = M + N − 2 if both M, N ≥ 2
- G(M, 1) = M
- G(1, N) = N
- G(1, 1) = 1
Read more about this topic: Safe Sex Makespan
Famous quotes containing the words problem and/or statement:
“The problem with marriage is that it ends every night after making love, and it must be rebuilt every morning before breakfast.”
—Gabriel García Márquez (b. 1928)
“Truth is used to vitalize a statement rather than devitalize it. Truth implies more than a simple statement of fact. “I don’t have any whisky,” may be a fact but it is not a truth.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)